1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an electrophotographic printer, and more particularly, to an electrophotographic printer having multiple doors to access disposables.
2. Description of the Related Art
In general, electrophotographic printers form an electrostatic latent image by radiating light on a photosensitive medium charged to a predetermined potential, develop the electrostatic latent image using a toner having a predetermined color image to form a toner image, transfer the toner image onto a recording medium, and fuse the toner image on the recording medium, thereby printing a monochromic or a multi-color image.
Electrophotographic printers are typically classified into wet type electrophotographic printers and dry type electrophotographic printers according to a developer used. A wet type electrophotographic printer uses a developer having powdered toner dispersed in a liquid carrier. A dry type electrophotographic printer uses a two-component developer having a powdered carrier mixed with a toner, or a one-component developer without the carrier. The dry type electrophotographic printer will now be described, and the term “developer” used throughout the specification indicates a toner for convenience sake.
Printing of a color image generally requires yellow (Y), magenta (M), cyan (C) and black (K) toners. Accordingly, four development units for developing the respective color toners are needed. Either a single-pass printing, which requires four exposure units and a photosensitive medium, or a multi-pass printing, which requires a single exposure unit and a photosensitive medium, may be employed in printing a color image. In either case, four development units are necessary.
A single-pass printing process allows high-speed printing for both a monochromic image and a color image because printing is performed in a single pass in both cases. On the other hand, although a multi-pass printing process requires a printing time for a color image four or more times longer than that for a monochromic image, it can be implemented by a simplified structure.
In the above-described electrophotographic printer, development units, photosensitive media or transfer media are disposables that can be replaced when they are used up.